The Queer Family Podcast – LGBTQ Families & Queer Parenting Stories · Jaimie Kelton – Queer Parenting & LGBTQ Families'.

ARCHIVAL: Children’s Equality in Ireland with Ranae von Meding

·47 min·3 clips

In Ireland, Ranae says only the birth parent is legally recognized, not her wife.

1. The Queer Family Podcast episode centers on Ranae von Meding and children’s equality in Ireland for LGBTQ families. 2. Hosts Jamie and Robin speak with Ranae von Meding, a Dublin-based writer, blogger, actress, and Equality for Children activist who matters because she is directly challenging Irish family law. 3. The episode asks what happens when a family has marriage equality on paper but not legal recognition for both parents. 4. Ranae says she and her wife Audrey wanted reciprocal IVF about five or six years ago and were told no clinic in Ireland had a license for it. 5. She explains that they went to Barcelona for Ava’s conception and later to Portugal after using the embryos they had stored in Spain. 6. Ranae says the treatment required about three weeks abroad each time and a complicated process at home with scans, blood tests, and medication prescriptions. 7. She describes having to use a GP in Dublin, not an OB, and translating foreign clinic instructions into Irish prescription forms. 8. Ranae says the sperm donor had to be from the same country as the clinic, which shaped their treatment route but not the family’s main decision. 9. She explains that anonymous donors are being banned in Ireland from May 5 and that identifiable donors will be the only allowed option. 10. Ranae says a major Irish fertility clinic only recently announced it would offer reciprocal IVF, after telling her years earlier that it could not. 11. She says that despite same-sex marriage being legal since 2015, Irish law still recognizes only the person who gives birth as the legal parent. 12. Ranae describes the result as a family being treated as married for most purposes but not when it comes to children. 13. She says her wife is not legally recognized as a parent to children conceived with Audrey’s eggs, even though Audrey is the genetic parent. 14. Jamie and Robin ask about custody, and Ranae says her wife would not automatically get custody if anything happened to her. 15. Ranae points to the risk of a judge being hostile to same-sex families and says the issue could become clear only through a court challenge. 16. She explains that a previous surrogacy case in Ireland failed because the constitution defines the mother as the person who gives birth. 17. The interview turns to campaign strategy, and Ranae says a petition reached 20,000 signatures before Simon Harris emailed her. 18. She says Equality for Children grew from family meetups, viral posts, magazine coverage, radio, and TV, then launched around a meeting with the minister for health. 19. The conversation is conversational and detailed, with Jamie and Robin asking practical questions about clinics, legal parentage, and custody. 20. Listeners who care about LGBTQ parenting, donor conception, and Irish family law will get the most from this episode, while people wanting a light celebrity chat may skip it.

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